San Jose, Calif.-based clinical communications vendor Vocera has been awarded a $14 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), with deployments set to begin this month in U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) facilities around the world.
This agreement with DoD marks the largest contract in Vocera’s history. Under the terms of the contract, Vocera will equip care team members with its wireless, hands-free communication solution in 23 facilities across MEDCOM, the company announced this week. The DoD selected Vocera after research was conducted by the Army showing several benefits of the vendor’s communication solution.
At Evans Army Community Hospital in Colorado, the hands-free technology helped improve operational efficiencies, and the emergency department reported a 50 percent decrease in the number of patients that left without being seen. In the family care ward, Vocera technology helped improve workflow, sped up nurse response times by 75 percent, and reduced patient falls by 81 percent. And in the hospital’s primary care and specialty clinics, a time and motion study showed that nurses gained an additional 1.5 hours per day and primary care physicians gained 40 minutes after implementing the technology. All of these results were announced in the press release statement from Vocera this week.
In 2015, the Vocera Communication Platform was awarded an Authority to Operate (ATO) from the DoD based on compliance with the security and risk management requirements specified by the Department of Defense Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP). In addition, the Vocera Communication Badge is a hands-free communication system that meets all government requirements, is FIPS 140-2 compliant, and Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) certified, officials said.
